And in the broken I find beauty. That's what they say. Cracks sealed with gold. How beautiful. How Japanese. How very convenient. But nobody tells you... the gold can bleed. A home disappears. I don't know where it went. My solar plexus garden withers. Maybe I stopped tending it. Maybe it got tired of growing in bad soil. Thoughts of vanishing— or just changing shape? I don't know anymore. I only know I don't want damage. Not anymore. I've used the hammer. I've been the hammer. I've mistaken breaking things for breaking through. And somewhere along the way I became my own hood. My own protector. My own witness. My own exhausted fucking craftsman. What if the crack isn't a lesson? What if it is? What if it's just a crack? Then I suppose we have to live with it. So don't tell me the broken is beautiful. Tell me it's broken. Don't pour gold over the wound and call it healing. The gold is bleeding. Still bleeding. And maybe I keep going not because the damage had a purpose— but because I haven't given up on the vessel. The bowl is cracked. Fine. Let it carry soup. Vulnerability becomes strength. So they say. The broken becomes art. So they say. Kintsugi. Suchness. Just this. No explanation. I like that part. Because sometimes there is no explanation. Sometimes toxic patterns just have to die. Sometimes the lacquer peels off and underneath it there is no golden revelation. Just wood. Old wood. Human wood. Wrinkles. Life marks. A surface that finally stopped pretending to be smooth. No settling. Or no safety? No hammer. Then what do you build with? I don't know. Maybe hands. So don't tell me the broken is beautiful. Tell me it's broken. Don't make a monument out of my scar. Don't turn my suffering into interior decoration. The gold is bleeding. Still bleeding. And maybe I keep going not because I know where this is going— but because I am still becoming. Put the cards away. Put the ledgers away. For once, don't count the damage. Don't calculate what was lost. Don't ask what it was worth. Just sit here. With the pieces. With the silence. With the ridiculous fact that somehow the broken bowl can still carry soup. I am the river. Not the stone. I move. I change shape. I lose pieces. I carry them with me. And I am still becoming— my own home. Maybe that's all hope is. Not optimism. Not faith. Not some golden philosophy about why everything had to happen. Maybe hope is simply refusing to throw the pieces away. So let it bleed. Let the gold bleed. Let the crack remain visible. I don't need to be repaired into somebody else's idea of whole. I don't need a beautiful explanation. I need a life that can still be lived. A heart that can still carry something. A body that can still dance. A bowl that can still carry soup. And if tomorrow I break again— I'll pick up what I can. Not because breaking made me beautiful. Not because suffering made me wise. Not because the universe had a grand plan. But because— I'm still here. And for now, that's enough. The circus is closed. The gold is running. The crack is still there. Good. I can see it. And I can see myself. Still becoming. Still bleeding. Still here.
